GRRM's new Not a Blog post

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So, thanks to GRRM's new NaB post about DwD it seems we can finally put together a final PoV list. There's 16 in total, not including the prologue or epilogue characters.

Prologue character: Varamyr Sixskins

- Tyrion

- Jon

- Daenerys

- Davos

- Bran

- Reek

- Asha

- Victarion (Gotta be Victarion and Asha, since Aeron is confirmed to not be in the book, and there'd be 3 old ironborn PoV's)

- Cersei

- Melisandre

- Arya

- Barristan

- Jaime

- Quentyn

- Areo Hotah (there would be "one old dornish PoV, one new". I figure the new one is Quentyn, and the old one is not Arianne since she won't be in the book. Since Arys is dead, that leaves Hotah)

- One more new PoV (this one has to be new since he said there'd be 4 new viewpoint characters introduced: Mel, Barristan, Quentyn, and this guy. So it seems we're left with yet another new "Mystery PoV"

Epilogue character: No clue (Epilogue confirmed though)

We got a lot of info about the amounts of chapters as well: there's 73 chapters in 1510 MS pages, which I think is quite nice. It means the chapters on average are shorter than in FfC (but still longer than in GoT,CoK,and SoS). Also almost half of the book will be given to Jon, Tyrion, and Dany.

All in all, the not a blog post is a very interesting read, giving a lot of details about the writing process of DwD.

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- either Areo Hotah or Arys Oakheart (there would be "one old dornish PoV, one new". I figure the new one is Quentyn, and the old one is not Arianne since she won't be in the book. That leaves these two)

Awesome. Highly doubt that the old dornish PoV is Arys Oakheart; I believe he's dead. So that leaves Areo Hotah or Arianne, who apparently won't be in the book, so I guess it's Hotah. I'm surprised Jaime has a POV chapter, I thought I heard he wasn't going to have one. I'm hoping the new Mystery POV is someone in the Vale or connected to Sansa or Littlefinger, just so get to read about them. Looks like over half the book will be Jon, Tyrion, Dany, and Theon chapters. Damn, July 12th can't come soon enough.

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Awesome. Highly doubt that the old dornish PoV is Arys Oakheart; I believe he's dead. So that leaves Areo Hotah or Arianne, who apparently won't be in the book, so I guess it's Hotah. I'm surprised Jaime has a POV chapter, I thought I heard he wasn't going to have one. I'm hoping the new Mystery POV is someone in the Vale or connected to Sansa or Littlefinger, just so get to read about them. Looks like over half the book will be Jon, Tyrion, Dany, and Theon chapters. Damn, July 12th can't come soon enough.

Thanks for pointing out that Arys oakheart is dead. I totally forgot that he got killed.

It could also be that he doesn't count Quentyn as a Dornish PoV. That would make the last one from Dorne.

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Trying to read between the lines, I wonder if this means death for one of the Lannisters or just that they have few chapters in Dance.

This book will have to have UnGregor vs the Church's champion so at least Cersei's chapters will be action-packed. Hoping she bites it though. It would be cool if the valonquar turned out to be Sandor Clegane.

"Sansa, Sam, Aeron Damphair, Arianne, and Brienne have no chapters in A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Several of those characters had chapters written, completed, and polished that have been moved into THE WINDS OF WINTER. "

Really hope Jaime's POV doesn't start with Brienne's untimely end :(

When was Davos confirmed?

Re: The three ironborn POVs - I was including Reek in that?

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We got a lot of info about the amounts of chapters as well: there's 73 chapters in 1510 MS pages, which I think is quite nice. It means the chapters on average are shorter than in FfC (but still longer than in GoT,CoK,and SoS). Also almost half of the book will be given to Jon, Tyrion, and Dany.

All in all, the not a blog post is a very interesting read, giving a lot of details about the writing process of DwD.

I am glad that the chapters aren't going to all be real long as I can't stand super long chapters.

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Strangely enough, George's post doesn't mention Davos. Since his chapters were read before, it doesn't seem likely he is not a POV, so I assume it is simple mistake. I took "two new POVs" to be people we never heard of, but I agree one of them is probably Quentyn, so it most likely mean "people who were mentioned, but never seen". It rather excludes Sarella and Marwyn who were mentioned in other thread as possibilities, since both were onstage in AFFC, if only briefly. Since we don't know where this new POV appears, it really may be anyone.

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Strangely enough, George's post doesn't mention Davos. Since his chapters were read before, it doesn't seem likely he is not a POV, so I assume it is simple mistake.

But Davos has to be in the book. Martin says we have 12 returning viewpoints and 4 new viewpoints. In total, we had 20 POV-Characters throughout the whole series. Three of them are dead (Eddard, Catelyn, Arys) and five are definately not in the book (Brienne, Samwell, Sansa, Aeron, Arianne), which leaves us with 12 characters, which will all have chapters in ADwD. I think Martin just forgot Davos and instead mentioned Theon twice.

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And there are some new viewpoint characters. Some of them are new CHARACTERS, introduced for the first time in this book. Others are established characters, but new VIEWPOINTS; they have been around, but you've never gone inside their heads before.

So some of the 4 new Viewpoints are new characters. With Melisandre and Barristan we have the established characters, Quentyn makes one of the new characters (mentioned but off-screen, definitely not established) so the other new viewpoint can not be a previously seen character. Sarella/Alleras has been on-screen so I don't think she's the one.

I think the last one is completely new, maybe one of the Golden Company? or someone previously mentioned but unseen from the Vale? (Harry the Heir?)

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It seems the returning character who's a bit worse for wear is hinted at Theon/Reek but it'd be a nice surprise to have a Cat point of view. Nothing to say about Brienne's death unfortunately as he says "several" of these characters have chapters in the next book but not her specifically.

I'm surprised no one has yet taken the article apart piece by piece and dissected it.

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I am glad that the chapters aren't going to all be real long as I can't stand super long chapters.

Actually this made me very happy as well. I know it doesn't have to say a whole lot about the book.. but in my opinion it's still a good sign. More story in less pages, might mean the book is more plot-oriented than aFfC was, and that is kinda what the series needs again.

As for the identity of the other PoV: I'm not entirely sure it HAS to be someone who we've never met, because there is already one person who fits that description (Quentyn) and GRRM might just not have worded it very carefully. Also I'm not entirely sure if Quentyn is the new Dornish PoV. He is Dornish, but he won't be in Dorne this book. So the new PoV might also be a Dornish person.

Alleras/Sarella, I don't know about that. I think if GRRM wanted to show us what's happening in Oldtown he might as well have used Sam, and we know Sam isn't in the book.

An interesting option to consider may be Marwyn. Although he's someone we've already met, but I think it'd be nice to have so many PoV's slowly converging towards Dany. We'll have Victarion, Quentyn, Tyrion and Marwyn all going there.